Heart failure & cardiomyopathiesCohort study
Controlling Nutritional Status score as a predictor of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with advanced heart failure
- retrospective single-centre cohort study
Authors' conclusion
CONUT-defined malnutrition was a strong independent predictor of ventricular arrhythmias and all-cause mortality in CRT recipients. Nutritional assessment may enhance risk stratification in patients with advanced HF undergoing CRT.
Study context
- Population
- Advanced heart failure (HF) patients receiving cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) between March 2004 and February 2023mean age 70.9 ± 9.5 years, 67.1% male
- Participants
- 167 patients
- Exposure
- Malnutrition (CONUT score and Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI)) as predictor of ventricular arrhythmias and all-cause mortality
- CONUT-defined malnutritionn = 26
- GNRI-defined malnutritionn = 37
- Outcome
- Composite of:
- Ventricular arrhythmias
- All-cause mortality
- Follow-up
- Median 1536 days (IQR: 844-1825 days)
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Adjusted hazard ratio
2.33
95% CI 1.30–4.20
P < 0.01
CONUT-defined malnutrition
adjusted HR 2.33 (95% CI 1.30–4.20); P < 0.01
- Higher event rates with CONUT-defined malnutrition, Kaplan-Meier log-rank
- P = 0.0003
- GNRI-defined malnutrition weak trend, log-rank
- P = 0.06
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Agreement between CONUT and GNRI malnutrition · moderate agreement
- Agreement between CONUT and GNRI malnutrition — κ
- 0.44
All-cause mortality
- CONUT
- P = 0.0001
- GNRI
- P = 0.01
Ventricular arrhythmias
- CONUT
- P = 0.01
- GNRI
- P = 0.38
Discrimination: adding CONUT score to base model
- concordance index
- 0.695 to 0.713
- P
- P = 0.008
Time-dependent ROC for CONUT-defined malnutrition · 1825 days
- AUC
- 0.80 (95% CI: 0.67-0.94)
Original publication
Controlling Nutritional Status score as a predictor of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with advanced heart failure. ESC Heart Fail. Published 26 February 2026. doi:10.1093/eschf/xvag037
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it